Eli5: How are humpback whales able to survive in both tropical temperatures and antarctic ones (when my fat can’t protect from either)?
In: 58
Short answer: blubber is very different from human fat.
Long answer: The blubber of sea mammals is highly vascularized (has lots of blood vessels) compared to normal fat and is incredibly thick relative to the body size. It’s also made up of way more lipids than water comparatively. The vascularization allows the animal to regulate its temperature much more easily than a fat human would in tropical waters.
Blubber also almost entirely envelops the body of most sea mammals with the exception of extremities. It’s basically a fat suit surrounding the entire animal, where humans develop fat in deposits unevenly around the body, often times nowhere near the outer skin.
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